Page:A Wreath of Cloud.djvu/91

Rh The glee imprinted on these small faces was charming to behold. The children made so big a snow-ball that when it came to rolling it along the ground they could not make it budge an inch, and the sight of their frantic endeavours to get it moving provoked much jeering and laughter from another party of children which had just made its appearance at the eastern door.

‘I remember,’ said Genji, ‘that one year Lady Fujitsubo had a snow-mountain built in front of her palace. It is a common enough amusement in winter time; but she had the art of making the most ordinary things striking and interesting. What countless reasons I have to regret her at every moment! I was during the greater part of her life not at all intimate with her and had little opportunity of studying her at close quarters. But during her residence at the Palace, she often allowed me to be of service to her in various small ways, and I frequently had occasion to use her good offices. In this way we were constantly discussing one piece of business or another, and I discovered that though she had no obvious or showy talents, she had the most extraordinary capacity for carrying through even quite unimportant and trivial affairs with a perfection of taste and management that has surely never been equalled. At the same time she was of a rather timid disposition and often took things too much to heart. Though you and she both spring from the same stem and necessarily have much in common, I have noticed that you are a good deal less even in temperament than she.

‘Lady Asagao, now, has a quite different nature. If in an idle moment I address to her some trifling fancy she replies with such spirit that I have hard work not to be left lagging. I know no one else at Court to compare with her in this respect.’

‘I have always heard,’ said Murasaki, ‘that Lady